Sunday, April 20, 2008

Dalai Lama in Ann Arbor, MI

While Pope Benedict has been visiting the United States, the Dalai Lama has been visiting Ann Arbor, MI., very close to my home. I have largely ignored his visit, but the local papers have done quite a bit of reporting on it. I wanted to relate a story I heard:

I saw a Catholic woman today who told me she had just come back from seeing the Dalai Lama. I jokingly asked her if she had thrown some water on him when he wasn't looking and said the words of baptism. She laughed, but told me that in his talk today (4/20), he related to the crowd how he had visited to shrine at Fatima to venerate Mary. There, he claims that the statue of the Blessed Virgin turned her head and smiled at him (!). Then, he followed that story up with these astonishing words: "I am a Christian!"

Obviously, he does not understand what being a Christian means if he says that yet simultaneously maintains to be the 14th reincarnation of the enlightened "Tulku" Buddhist Masters. It is not surprising to me, either, that given the modern state of the Church, he felt welcome at Fatima and claimed that the Blessed Virgin smiled at him. I have no corroboration for this story other that the words of this woman who heard them from his mouth today. Any thoughts on it? UPDATE: PLEASE SEE COMMENTS FOR CLARIFICATION AND CORROBORATION OF THIS STORY

4 comments:

I was there at the event. He said "I am a Christian" accidentally, he meant "I am a Buddhist". He apologized for the slip of tongue, don't read too much into it.

He was saying this in the context of how all religions have the same basis; and how some Father in some Australian church introduced him as "A good Christian" -- i.e., you can be "a good christian" even if you are buddhist, and vice versa.

In essence, his message was : there are many religions. They all have common intents. Each religion is unique because of the people and the culture that created it. But the goal is the same. So follow anything you want, but respect others' religions.

Now, now, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Buddhist...Christian? Maybe a little slip of the alphabet. They are, after all, only one letter off. And it could be understandable how someone who does not have the mastery of the English language could make an error. The alphabet is somewhat confusing.

Boy, after reading what I just wrote, I think I may have to take a thorazine pill and see my shrink.

Satan is working overtime to convince everyone that we're all the same. The blind leading the blind.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

"We most humbly beseech Thee Almighty God, to command that these offerings be borne by the hands of Thy holy Angel to Thine altar on high in the sight of Thy Divine Majesty, that as many of us as at this altar shall partake of and receive the most holy Body and Blood of Thy Son, may be filled with every heavenly blessing and grace. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen." -Supplices te Rogamus, from the Canon of the Mass (1962)

Cardinal Ottaviani: "Recent reforms have amply demonstrated that fresh changes in the liturgy could lead to nothing but complete bewilderment on the part of the faithful who are already showing signs of restiveness and of an indubitable lessening of faith...errors against the Faith are not so much insinuated but rather an inevitable consequence of liturgical abuses and aberrations which have been given equal recognition. To abandon a liturgical tradition which for four centuries was both a sign and pledge of unity of worship is, we feel in conscience bound to proclaim, an incalculable error."

Pope Pius XII: "I hear all around me innovators who want to dismantle the Holy Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, throw away her ornaments, give her a remorse of her historical past. Well my dear friend, I have the conviction that the Church of Peter must assume her past or she will dig her own grave."

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Pope St. Pius X

1903-1914 "With truly lamentable results, our age, casting aside all restraint in its search for the ultimate causes of things, frequently pursues novelties so ardently that it rejects the legacy of the human race."

St. Thomas Aquinas (Doctor Angelicus)

"Among the Scholastic Doctors, the chief and master of all towers Thomas Aquinas, who, because he most venerated the ancient doctors of the Church, in a certain way seems to have inherited the intellect of all." (Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, 17)

Ratko Peric, Bishop of Mostar-Duvno, Herzegovnia

"It is therefore forbidden to claim or to declare in churches and religious communities that Our Lady has appeared or will yet appear in Medjugorje." Seat of Wisdom, by Bishop Peric, 1995

Pope Leo XIII

"Let your solicitude watch and your authority be effective in controlling, compelling, and also preventing, lest anyone under the pretext of good should cause the vigor of sacred discipline to be relaxed or the order which Christ has established in His Church to be disturbed." -Graves de Communi re, 27 (1901)